Just some of our top learning tools.
One of my kids all time favourite games is Orchards Shopping list game. They love this. Now that Blue is getting a bit older he and pink have actually started playing the game without us parents and they now use their 2 bears to make up the 4 players. This is a great memory game as they need to remember where they put down the pieces, but it is also a great vocab game and great at helping them learn about taking turns (this is often the hardest part of the game).
We are also big fans of our magnetic letters and numbers (we got ours at ELC here in the UK). We have used these letters for so many things. We have hidden them in sensory bins for letter hunts, have played games where the kids need to match the lower case letter with the capital letters, we have used them to create words on our magnetic board and Pink has used them to help her letter writing. When Pink was really struggling with her writing in Reception we would dig out the letter that we where writing and pink would trace over the letter with her finger and then place it at the top of her page while she practiced forming her letters. If you do not have a magnetic board you can use a baking tray.
Our Plastic animals. We have all kinds, all different brands, we never seem to have enough of these. Both kids are always making up great stories with their animals, our animals have been taken all over the house in the back of trucks and trains. We have also used out plastic animals a lot with out maths. Pink loves adding or subtracting or even working out what number is greater than when she gets to use her animals. We have used some of the animals to make foot prints in their play dough and even painted with them. The uses for these animals just appear to be endless.
Lego. There are lots of great posts on learning with Lego on Pinterest. We have used our Lego with our Maths, making towers to represent our numbers is a great visual aid for the kids. We have built towers and bridges for our trains and cars to drive through and as the kids are getting older so I can see more and more fun activities for our box of Lego.
Our Stabilo Woody pencils these are expensive but they have been a miracle worker with my little girl. Pink has never enjoyed colouring in or writing, she battled with the pressure (part of her spd), but these pencils really helped her. Only after we got her these did she really start enjoying colouring in and she used these for about a year to do all her handwriting lessons. She now uses a range of different pencils but I have noticed that she does come back to these, especially on the days when she is feeling tired. You can also use these as water-colour pencils by dipping them in water (both kids love this).
ofamily learning together 